The Big Ten – Part 2: Honoring the Sabbath
Exodus 35:2–3 (NIV)
2 For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of sabbath rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it is to be put to death. 3 Do not light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day.”
Growing up in a Dutch Reformed area (although neither Dutch or Reformed ourselves) we understood the honoring of the Sabbath (which was Sundays and not the Biblical Saturday). One Sunday my father was mowing the grass on a Sunday and was confronted by a neighbor who informed my father, “we don’t do that around here on Sunday’s”. And so my dad went along with it, even though he personally didn’t see it conflicting with his “Sabbath”. A quick review of the Ten Commandments and this passage from Exodus 35:2-3, makes it very clear that the Sabbath was to be honored by every Israelite. No work was to be done whatsoever, including the lighting of a fire (presumably to cook), because God rested on the seventh day after creating the universe (Ex. 20:11), therefore setting a pattern for His people to follow. The penalty for failure to honor the Sabbath was death. No ancient civilization had a comparable commandment, Israel was completely unique in its Sabbath honoring.
The question for Christians, who have been set free from the Law through Jesus Christ, is do we need to continue to honor the Sabbath, by not working, and if so which day do we honor the Sabbath? Jesus was clear with the religious leaders that “the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath (Lk. 6:5),” and that “the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27)”. Paul warns the Christians in Colossians not to let anyone judge them because they do or do not follow the Jewish customs, including festivals (such as Passover, festival of booths) and Sabbaths (Col. 2:16), as they are merely shadows of the things to come, the full expression of these were in Christ. This did not mean the principle of the Sabbath was to be completely neglected in our freedom however. Jesus always honored the intent of the Sabbath (just not the legalistic version presented by the religious leaders), and Paul continued to argue that even though we are set free from the Law, the Law was still good in that it points out righteousness and sin.
With this in mind it seems that for Christ followers. In our freedom in Christ, we should still choose to take one day a week to rest and worship the Lord, not in a legalistic sense but to enjoy Creation, family, friends. We need the rest to recharge our batteries, to honor our Creator and Savior.
As to which day to honor as Sabbath, in the late first century to early second century AD, as the Christian movement became more Gentile, Christians began worshipping on Sundays instead of Sabbath Saturdays, because it was the first day of the week, the day Jesus rose from the dead. Christians worshipped on this day because it reminded them that their Savior was alive and sitting at the right hand of God the Father, they were risen with Christ and would soon join him in his eternal kingdom. Today, most Christians honor Sunday as the Sabbath, but the day is not as important the practice of rest and worship. For example, as a pastor, I work on the Sunday Sabbath, so I take Fridays as my Sabbath.